


pull these white sheets from my head

by Companionable



Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Family Dynamics, Family Issues, Gen, Implied Coercion, Implied Imbalanced Relationship, Implied Power Imbalance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2015-08-02
Packaged: 2018-04-12 15:31:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4484731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Companionable/pseuds/Companionable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On an odd day off, Will ends up back on the steps of a familiar brownstone. Knocking on the door takes more effort than he expects.</p>
<p>
  <i>"The pathway leading to Xephos and Honeydew’s front door looms before him, simultaneously as short as two steps ahead and as long as an eternity spent away.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>What he honestly doesn't prepare for is Xephos' hard expression and obvious frigidity."</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	pull these white sheets from my head

**Author's Note:**

> started this way back in february and only recently re-discovered it and brought it to completion. clearly my fascination in this au is mostly to do with the family dynamics it fostered. i also cant leave family issues unresolved, and will apprenticing under kirin seemed a pretty big issue. 
> 
> thanks as always to friends for being cheerleaders and overstuffing my ego.

Rare is the day that Will doesn’t have anything to do, and even rarer are continued stretches of days like that. Often, Kirin will have him off in some glade or another, sitting on some park bench in some subdivision, or meditating in a backseat booth in a coffee shop downtown where everyone’s laptops and phones are connected to a single wi-fi hotspot. It’s never expressly said to him that interrupting any of these activities would be ill-advised at best, but Will has learned to understand all the many things that Kirin never says. If it’s not that, it’s doing anything and everything to get Will to bed, in bed, under him, around him, near him in ways that only twine their souls closer and weave their magic together in ways that Will doesn’t want to think about having to undo.

So when the week rolls around that Kirin cops to having something to do -- some business elsewhere in the city with other fae that he doesn’t want Will privy to for any multitude of reasons -- that will take him from his mentorship with Will, he says to Will only: “Use the time as pleases you, though I would hope against hope that the time is spent mostly awaiting my return.” And around the jest, Will sees an opportunity.

Or, more accurately, he completely misses an opportunity until his idle, wandering feet in the middle of rush hour traffic -- now infinitely more tolerable with an ease of ignorance to it -- bring him to a stop in front of a white picket fence, lined with a carefully tended garden, leading up to a set of steps and a door that he’s been dreaming of for months without realizing.

When he’d left the brownstone, he hadn’t meant for it to be the production that it was. Sneaking out in the middle of the night, asking a gargoyle for a glamour, fighting said gargoyle’s fae circle when he told them where he was sneaking out to go, losing terribly and escaping only by virtue of a convenient appearance by the sidhe lord’s harbingers... 

Well, calling it a messy affair would be putting it kindly. 

The pathway leading to Xephos and Honeydew’s front door looms before him, simultaneously as short as two steps ahead and as long as an eternity spent away. Looking at it, Will doesn’t even know what he would do if he walked up there and gave visiting a shot. He’d used his intimate knowledge of the schedules of the house’s occupants to spirit away the things he’d left behind in his haste to start apprenticing under the fae lord of the city, so it wasn’t as though he had anything to retrieve as a guise for stopping in. If he did stop at the brownstone, it would be purely because he missed it.

He doesn’t realize that in the time it takes him to work this out, he’s already opened the fence gate and taken the four and a half steps it takes to reach the front stoop. It takes him another two minutes to raise his hand and curl it into a fist.

In the time between knocking and the door opening, Will runs through what feels like a million possible scenarios in his head, ranging from Honeydew being the one to open the door, to finding entirely new owners living in the brownstone instead of his family. Time stretches, and Will feels like some fae has been out there bewitching him to live through a thousand different universes created by every little choice he makes. Theoretically, such time should be ample for him to prepare for the door opening. 

What he honestly doesn't prepare for, though, is Xephos' hard expression and obvious frigidity.

"William. How good of you to drop by." It's icy, distant, and not full of the tenderness Xephos usually drops into everything he does. 

Will does his best not to wince.

"Hi, Uncle Xephos," he says instead, tentatively, feeling remarkably like a much younger boy who once stood before this threshold, waiting to be accepted in it, not knowing he already was. He realizes, in the expanse of silence that stretches afterward, that this is maybe the first time he's felt the need to wait to be allowed inside, that this could be the first time his welcome inside the house has been called into question. He coughs. "Are... Are you gonna, uh... C-can I...?"

Xephos crosses his long arms, taking Will in. "Do you require it now?" For a moment, his uncle's eyes have the illusion of lingering too long around his neck, on the space on one of his fingers where a ring might sit. But it's just a trick of the light. It must be.

Will tells himself he doesn't hesitate to step past Xephos when his uncle moves aside to let him in anyway, but the moment's pause is there, like the flash of something falling and shattering on the floor just outside of your periphery. "Um, n-no it--that's not necessary. No. I was just..." He turns in the entryway, taking his time turning to look around the brownstone as if it were entirely new to him all over again. "I wanted to be sure I wasn’t making you uncomfortable."

Xephos snorts. "Worry not, William, I’m used to discomfort, lately. Though not, necessarily, around you--I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve decided either way." His uncle strides briskly for the kitchen. "Do you take milk and sugar in your tea, still? Or are such mortal indulgences beneath you?"

Will smothers a sigh in a bracing palm across his face and toes off his shoes, hangs his jacket on the hanger by the door even as habit tells him to drape it over the bannister. He should have expected this to be as trying as it is. "Milk and sugar is fine, thank you."

"Well, alright then." Xephos puts the kettle on and turns the burner up, pulling a teapot down from its home above the stove to drop two bags of earl grey inside. He grabs from the hangers underneath the cupboards the mug he had been using since Will moved out, the one with "#1 Bee Dad" painted on it carefully in Honeydew's easy scrawl, and from the corner cupboard he retrieves and places in front of Will a non-descript, black mug; one which came as part of a set with the kitchenware they hardly ever used. In the tense and uneasy silence that follows, Will wonders if Xephos threw out or donated his own mug of preference, a dark blue with schematics printed on it for something or other -- a gift from Nilesy shortly after he'd arrived in the city -- or if he was just making a point in not giving it to him.

The kettle boils, whistling shrilly into the silence that had set a stiffness into Will’s spine, and he pulls at his collar. He feels the strong desire to cast a charm to freshen the air, a spell to open a window and make everything less stuffy, reinfuse the hex bag hanging from one of the cupboard handles with a floral scent to cut the tension in the room with something else, something more pleasant. He tamps down on it. He nearly chokes on the urge as he does, a thick tightening around his neck at refusing desire, but he swallows it all down nonetheless. Xephos eyes him. “Wh--ehm. Are Lalna and Honeydew out?”

“They’d a meeting at the university.” The burner flicks off with the scent of half-conscious magic and Xephos pours the water into the teapot with gentle ease. He doesn’t look at Will. “The departments are convening and Lalna’s professor asked him along as part of their mentorship. Honey said the meeting may run late, and that he’d strongly advise that Lalna be sent home early if that seemed the case.”

“Mentorship?”

“Ah, of course. It figures you might not be...” Xephos does as close to sneering as Will thinks him capable -- he feels himself flush at the implication -- before continuing, “aware, necessarily, of recent developments around here.” He pours the tea out of the pot, into the mug placed before Will, without looking him in the eye. “Yes, Lalna’s moved up in his department. His professor’s taken quite fondly to him; he’ll be TA-ing for the head of the department next semester.” After pouring his own mug, he places the pot back on a cork mat on the island, and finally meets Will’s gaze again. “It’s all very exciting.”

Will squirms, wrapping his hands around his mug. “It sounds exciting,” he manages, as Xephos places the sugar and milk in front of him with a clean spoon.

His uncle watches him as he puts his tea together, in silence. Xephos’ reluctance to ask Will about his own life’s happenings hangs in the air between them, palpable in the way he keeps his eyes on him without saying anything.

“So, uh, do you--”

“Dad?!” Lalna calls from the front door, and both occupants of the kitchen visibly relax at the cut in the tension. “Hey, Pops said the meeting looked like it was going to go late, so I--are these... Is Will here?”

Will clears his throat around a swallow of tea to respond, “Yeah, we’re in the kitchen!”

It takes a moment filled with sounds of Lalna pulling his jacket off and toeing off his shoes, a moment of Will and Xephos pointedly not making eye contact, before Lalna wanders into the kitchen and into the arms Will opens for him. “Strifey! S’been a while since I last saw you ‘round here! You staying for dinner, pal?” he asks, big and warm and -- thankfully -- free of judgement and questions. Will finds himself overwhelmingly grateful. He’d missed his pseudo-brother.

“I’m not sure William has the time to stay for dinner, Lalna,” Xephos says, without a hint of disappointment. “I’m sure he must be just _terribly_ busy.”

Lalna looks confused, grabbing his mug (emblazoned with the Jurassic Park logo and a feathered raptor) and pouring what’s left of the tea into it. “Busy with what? Will’s never busy.”

Xephos smiles, but it’s tight, and Will can hear that in his voice. “Oh, well. Just a bit of my own intuition.”

“Well,” says Lalna, around a biscuit he’s scrounged from the cupboards, placing the package down in front of Will with an invitational raise of his eyebrows, “whatever he’s got on, I’m sure it can be put on hold for a spot of dinner with family. Right, Will?”

Will swallows another gulp of tea to give himself time. It’s not enough. Never enough. “Oh, uh--Ha, I don’t... I wouldn’t want to--”

Xephos looks like he’s relaxing, but Lalna scoffs. “Come off it, you haven’t been ‘round for dinner in ages. Stay. Pops will be pleased to have you. Won’t he, Dad?”

Lalna’s prompting seems to shake Xephos, if only a bit. “Lalna, chew with your mouth _closed_ , please. And finish your biscuit before you go taking a gulp of tea and talking, the combination of tea-drenched biscuit-mulch in your mouth while you flap your gums like the dryad is awfully unbecoming.”

In response, Lalna makes a point to grab another biscuit and gulp the rest of his tea in as quick succession as he can manage, and then smile beatifically at his father while making for the basement stairs. “I’ll be back in a mo’, I’ve just got something on downstairs that I’ve been meaning to check on all day.”

Silence. It’s enough to make the house seem cold, broken open as if there were a draft coming in through the corners of the walls and chilling the place to the bone, a quality that the brownstone never used to boast. The house was never anything but the warmest of places for Will, always a comfort to enter. The freezing hostility he’s greeted with now makes his heart ache.

“Well,” Xephos finally says, drawing runes into the counter like he used to, warming both their mugs, though only by virtue of how they’re both touching the conductive countertop. “I suppose you’re willing to let your new master wait even longer while you waste your time here?”

It’s said with such disdain down the length of Xephos’ nose that Will can’t help his immediate reaction. At the slam of Will’s fist on the island counter, the microwave pings, the fridge kicks into high gear, and Xephos’ phone in his pocket vibrates madly for a few moments. “Is this going to go on all day? Until I leave? Every time I come back?”

“Oh,” Xephos says airily, his features schooled, “shall I expect more visits from you in the future, then? I’ll be sure to roll out the red carpet and arrange a welcome wagon next time, I’m so sorry for the--”

“Uncle Xephos!” Will says, with as much force as he can while still keeping Lalna from being disturbed. “I know I hurt you, I know I was stupid and reckless and I should’ve handled things better, b-but--well, frankly, it’s getting a bit ridiculous how _cold_ you’re being! Didn’t you always say that this would be my home forever, if I needed it?”

“Do you need it anymore, Will?”

Will groans, loud and aggravated, from deep in his chest, and he hears a depressed whine from the cordless phone in the other room as it is drained of battery power. “How in the hell can I even make this right with you, Uncle Xephos?”

At that, Xephos closes his eyes, takes a deep, bracing breath, and cups both his hands around his mug. On the window sill, familiar dwarven runes light up like oil spills in the air, shifting and humming as Xephos schools his emotions. “Make it right? Stupid and reckless? Well, _that_ is certainly an understatement.” Carefully, Xephos sips at his tea, and breathes again.

“You moved out, is the crux of it all, William. You abandoned this house and this hearth that kept you for so long. And you did it under cover of night, with help from _Ross_ , that sweet child, and you had neither the gall nor the courage to tell me either where you had gone, what you were thinking, or when we would see you again. You simply left a string of code on my personal computer that said you were going to learn to control yourself and your power.” The runes shift and fall back against their sills, though the air still thrums faintly with magic. “And then I have to hear--through the grapevine from one of my sons, no less!--that you’ve taken to shacking up with... with that fae _creature_.”

Will can’t help the look of indignation, can’t help the quiet scoff as he contests, “ _Shacking up_ , Uncle Xephos? Really?”

Xephos’ gaze is razor sharp, and cold as the winter days not long past. “Am I wrong, boy?”

All Will can do is glare. Glare, and clutch his mug in desperate hopes of finding some warmth in the house that Xephos has made so chilled to him.

Xephos doesn’t let the silence hang long. “Did you expect that you could drop in for a spot of tea and nothing would be amiss? You’d sit down to dinner with me and my husband and our boy like you never left? I never thought you so foolish, William.”

That hurts. “Your hearth has always been mine. Since I came here, since you brought me into your family. I thought I’d be welcomed home when I was finally settled enough to return.”

“No,” Xephos says, firmly. “Things change when you leave, child. The world turns because it does not revolve around you. And I would be more foolish than even you not to make it clear that I think you’re an absolute idiot for making the choices that you have. But they’re not my choices. What _is_ my choice is how long you stay -- and I think you’ve stayed quite long enough.” 

He turns his back to Will, and brings the teapot to the sink, pulling the teabags out to dry for the garden. “I trust you know where the door is.”

In the ensuing stillness of the air, Will is stung enough that he makes to grab his bag and go, but almost as if on cue: said door swings open. The solid wood lets out a deep _thunk_ as it hits the wall, letting in the fresh spring air and the sound of birds in the growing evening with it. “Xephos? Lalna? I see shoes here, has William dropped by for a visit?”

Xephos’ demeanor improves immediately. “In the kitchen, Honey!”

Honeydew trundles in, dropping his briefcase by the phone and putting his hands on his hips. “Well, look who bloody well decided to show his face around here again. Who the hell is this stranger?”

For a moment, Will can’t tell if he’s getting more of the same icy-frost from his other uncle as Xephos was just giving him, if the most genuinely kind man he could ever ask for as an uncle was truly upset with him.

But he just throws his arms wide, and gestures for Will to bend down to him. “Well, come on then, you big lug! Get down here and give your Uncle Honeydew a hug. We haven’t seen you in damn well too long, kiddo.”

“Yeah, I...” Will swallows and bends to give Honeydew a hug, squeezing him tightly. “I’m sorry about that, Uncle Honeydew, Uncle Xephos. It--Things took longer to... to settle in than I thought they would. I would have--hmm. If I’d have known it would be this long, I would have called.”

“Well, considering how well acquainted you are with this terrifying new technology we call _telephones_ , I expected you to have done so ages ago. And I’m not letting you off the hook for that.” Honeydew steps away to lean up and meet Xephos for a chaste kiss, then moves along to the cupboards, bringing out pans and other cookware. “Shall I make your favourite then? I think I’ve finally refined my carbonara recipe to the point where it is literally perfect, and I’d love to have you try it, lad.”

Will catches Xephos’ eye, and ducks his head. “I... I don’t know, Uncle Dew. I don’t want to cause any--”

Honeydew scoffs, loudly, and slams the pan on the stove. “Nonsense, kiddo. We’ll have you stay for dinner, and then you can get on to whatever else it is in your life that’s more important than us.”

It’s comforting, knowing that Honeydew has remained largely unchanged by Will’s absence, though it makes Xephos’ anger all the more upsetting. It’s so much like what his life used to be, like living with them all over again, but as if everything in the house had been shifted slightly to the right, just enough that he keeps bumping into things and never knowing if it were him or the objects which were out of place.

Thumping from the stairs as Lalna takes them by two and pokes his head out of the stairwell. “Hey, Dad, did you do something to the matrix downstairs while I was away today?”

Xephos perks up, the taut lines of his face softening slightly. “Pardon? Oh, uh... no, I haven’t touched it. Why, is something wrong?”

“Yeah, the circuitry seems off. It’s not firing at the rate it normally does. And I think the code might have broken somehow.”

Will coughs and stands from his seat, watching Xephos carefully as he says, “Uh, can I take a look at it? I assume it’s the one that’s still wrapped in the little bonsai tree that Lalna brought from Nano, right?”

That seems to brighten Lalna and surprise Xephos. “Aw, shit, would you really? I’m bonkers over some of this code, I’ve not looked at it since you set it up while you were here. It’s really annoying!”

He grins, following Lalna down, trying not to balk when he hears another pair of footsteps following behind him. “Sure. I could even take a look at the little bonsai’s roots. If there’s something messed up down there, it could be why the circuitry is having issues, and might have ended up rejigging the code some.”

“Really? The matrix is that connected to the life of the bonsai? Shit, how did I not know that?”

Will laughs, patting Lalna’s shoulder. “Because you didn’t listen to me when I told you the first time? Or to Lalna when he brought it? Or.. well, or _he_ didn’t listen to Nano when she gave it to him; either way, Lalnas never listen to lengthy explanations.”

“What was that? I stopped listening,” Lalna says with a blank face, before he starts laughing along with Will. Behind them Xephos shakes his head as they step up to the runic matrix which protects the area around the brownstone.

Cracking his fingers and dropping down into Lalna’s ergonomic office chair that rolls around in his basement workplace, Will casts only a cursory glance at Xephos before he gets to work coaxing the bonsai into malleability, drawing leaves and roots and branches away from the core of the matrix. “Could you grab my access terminal from my bag upstairs super quick? You haven’t changed the ports down here since I left, have you?”

Lalna snorts. “As if anyone in this house but you could ever accomplish anything with this mess.”

Will curls his nose. “You did a fair job, as I remember.”

“Well, you’re remembering wrong, then. I was utter shit,” he says with a laugh, and then he’s bounding up the stairs and gone.

There’s comfortable silence, a silence that Will prefers when he works, as he speaks in gestures and half-drawn runes and murmured incantations to bring the bonsai out of it’s protective curl around a small circuit board. The green of the leaves and the reflective green of the board become gradually distinct, separating and disentangling as Will draws the circuit board into his grasp. Like desperate fingers, Will pries roots and branches from the edges, never once actually touching the tree, but rather encouraging it to release the core on its own, though the grounding wiring remains tightly wound up with the base of the bonsai.

“That... that’s certainly more than you could do last time,” Xephos says, quietly and carefully, but lacking most of the malice he’d been exuding upstairs.

Will swallows. “Um, yeah. I’ve uh--I’ve picked up some things.”

“Please, Will,” his uncle says, holding up a hand, “no details.” Xephos shifts, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning over Will’s shoulder to watch him work more closely. “Did you ever use an access port before? Didn’t you just... talk to it?” he asks, with a wiggle of his fingers indicating a magic with which he’s less familiar.

Will nods. “Yeah, but that disperses way too much energy. I lose a lot of my effectiveness when I don’t have a conduit. It’s like runes. Sure, you can do a spell or incantation without them, but the amount of energy you waste into the ether doing that is just sad, and the kickback that builds up in the area is something fierce. Might as well spend the extra time and effort to focus what you’re doing.”

That gets Xephos humming interestedly, nodding along as he takes the information in, like he does with any magic he learns of. “And this is all information from...”

“From him, yes,” Will sighs out, lifting and turning the chip to look for any erosion or damage to the wiring, running his finger along some of the metallic filaments to reinfuse them with the protective energies which prevent such wear-and-tear. “Though... not necessarily about technomancic principles. Just the idea in general. I extrapolated and built my own failsafes and conduits.”

“I...” Xephos starts, trailing off with a look directed at Will that’s somewhere between fear and awe, a sort of reverence, before he shakes his head and offers, “I must say that I’m impressed, Will.”

He can’t help the self-confident smirk, or the chance for an I-told-you-so with the old man. "I'm not the same skinny, scared kid my dad dumped on your doorstep years ago, Uncle Xephos. I'm not the same boy that had no idea what to do with his power. And I'm not the same person who was so easily puppeted." Will looks over his shoulder at his uncle, the man who maybe wasn’t his father, maybe isn’t his mentor, but raised him all the same, and softens his smirk into a genuine smile. “It took a couple of burns, but I learned not to play with the stove.”

It’s an adage Xephos has used with the Lalnae, and he smiles minimally to hear it. “A healthy respect for the heat. Good.”

A tension lifts in the room, and Lalna returns downstairs with a peculiar look on his face. “You all right?” he asks them.

“Peachy,” Will says, holding out an empty hand at Lalna. “Give us the terminal, would you?”

The terminal is a small plug-in about the size of a small thumb drive, which he plugs into a port on the side of the data chip. From there, accessing the mainframe of the runic matrix is easy, and nudging the code into giving up it’s failings is as simple as asking. He corrects some of the syntax in a few lines of the protective code, and notices a conditional action being routinely unfulfilled. A few waves of his hand and a wiggle of his fingers, and the code rights itself, heaving a happy sigh in his mind as everything settles into place and the data-based incantation can run properly once more. Will extricates himself from the matrix and weaves the chip back into the centre of the bonsai’s branches, curling and collecting them so that the chip is almost entirely hidden once more. In all, the process only takes about ten or fifteen minutes.

“That is absolutely nutty,” Lalna mutters, mostly to himself. “Do you think there’s any way you could teach me how to do that? Like, I know technomancy is, like... a born-this-way sort of deal and all, but surely there’s some way that I could learn to do something like that. Right?”

Xephos chuckles. “Probably not, my dear boy. But, between all of us, we might be able to get you an external port and a physical command terminal so that you can do this sort of thing yourself. Can’t we, William?”

Startled, Will turns and coughs, the chair spinning him just slightly too far so that he has to press his feet into the floor to right himself. That was... “Uh, I--Y-Yeah! Um, sure, we could definitely do that. I’ll have some more time a couple of weeks from now, we could go out and look for something then?” he offers, eager to make firm an offer for him to return.

His uncle nods appreciatively, as though some unspoken test had been passed. “I’m sure that would work.”

“Oh, and who’s been watering this thing while I’ve been gone?”

Guilty silence. Xephos and Lalna glance at each other, and just as quickly glance away. “Well, I do manage to make it down here every few days to check... It’s always seemed fine, I-I didn’t--”

“With school and work and the mentorship, I just didn’t have the time! It’s--I don’t have the space of--”

“Honey’s been down here too! Though he... he usually waters it enough for all the days we’ve missed and... Well, I’m sure that’s no good...”

Will slides his face into his palm. “O-Okay. So, just so you’re both aware -- and please tell Uncle Dew this too -- the bonsai requires _daily watering_. It’s an essential part of the syntax of the incantation, there’s a whole subroutine dedicated to finding energy to keep the protection spell running based on how the tree’s health is doing. So, you got--You guys have to water it. This is possibly the strongest defense the brownstone has outside of the hearth itself.”

Xephos screws up his face. “Even more than Honey’s runes? _Really?_ ”

“Yes,” Will intones seriously. “This is... The runes are good for malignant forces and lingering unwelcome energies, but the runic matrix is what keeps the brownstone off the radar for the big fae.” He says ‘big fae’ while looking directly at Xephos, which brings a coldness to the man’s blue gaze. “The hearth is a good last line, it’s something that won’t break unless we do, but it’s also hugely powerful magic that draws attention. It’s probably why Ross and the others took an interest in us.

“But the matrix has concealment magic in its routines. It keeps us from showing up as a hotspot of magical energy, so we instead only blip as a minor producer. You’d have to be looking for us to find us.”

That gets Xephos to soften. “I had no idea it did something like that. How complicated was that for you to set up? It’s taken me months to craft and perform an incantation on that scale.”

Will rubs at his neck. “Well, I mean the great thing about data-based incantation is that the code does the recitation for you? Every time the program runs through the code, it’s like renewing the lines of circle based magic; it strengthens and rejuvenates it. So when the program runs the code at a rate of five or so times a day, you get the strongest sort of incantation possible. The hardest part is coding it. I feel like this took me a few weeks, maybe? And it’s pretty simple stuff to me now; I could easily replicate the code with improvements in a week.”

Lalna and Xephos both stare at him, and he rubs harder at his neck, casting his eyes to the carpet. “Well, bugger me and call me a dandy, you definitely couldn’t teach me this shit, could you? This is unbelievable!”

“Yes,” Xephos says fondly, with a note of pride that makes Will’s face burn, “It’s very impressive, William.”

“Alright, family, soup’s on! Lalna, bring your brother up and set the table for your Da and I!” Honeydew calls down the stairs. “Xeph, darling, would you like to pick out a bottle of pinot grigio while you’re down there?”

Affection splits Xephos’ face, and Lalna and Will escape with familiar haste up the stairs while gagging loudly. “Of course, my heart. I’ll bring it up in a mo’.”

As if no time outside of the brownstone had passed at all, Will and Lalna set the table in perfect tandem, Lalna laying out cutlery and napkins while Will dispenses pasta bowls and wine glasses. They both cart the food out to the table together when Honeydew says they can, and Xephos passes around the table pouring out wine into their glasses for them before sitting at the head. It’s nothing like the holiday feasts Xephos loves so much, the table not nearly as long as it is then, just small enough to accommodate them on all four of its sides. 

When they’ve all served themselves, but before they take their first bite, Xephos says a prayer and blesses the food, a warm and familiar almost-breeze passing around the dining room as he does. Honeydew complements the blessing, shaking out a salt rune on the table’s treated oak surface for protection and clarity, and Lalna lights the candles in the centre of the table. By force of habit, and out of nostalgia at the comfort of routine, Will finds the nearest outlet and follows the flow of electricity around the dining room, running a protective spell through the current as he runs his consciousness along wires that circle the room.

Once the room and the family and the food have all been properly infused, they dig in. Honeydew’s carbonara is miles better than Will remembers it, the creamy white wine sauce rolling on his tongue with an oily savour. The carefully pan seared pancetta has a crisp outside that holds all the spices it had been cooked in, but the small diced cubes are not so cooked that they don’t still have a chewy centre. With Honeydew’s always impeccably cooked spaghettini and fresh parsley from Xephos’ rooftop garden, the meal is delicious enough to make Will consider giving up his studies under the city’s sidhe lord and wallow for a few more years under the brownstone’s roof.

Temporary guest status is enough for Will to have the privilege of begging off dishes while Honeydew and Lalna clean up, and he and Xephos are left at the table to converse. The dinner conversation had been conspicuously absent of any discussion of Will’s current situation, yet had felt entirely natural and unhindered, a comfortable banter between people who had grown terribly used to each other’s company.

He and Xephos are quiet. Xephos nurses his second glass of wine while Will fiddles with his own empty glass, running his fingers up and down the stem and spinning it slowly on its base. Finally, Xephos says, “You should come for dinner more often. It’s dreadful to see you come home and look such a stranger.”

“Let me tell you, Uncle Xephos, it feels a thousand times worse.”

With a sigh, Xephos sets his glass down. “I know, my boy. I’m sorry. I was an arse when I ought have just been glad you came home.”

Will shakes his head, not looking up from his glass. “No. I left in a shitty state. I didn’t let you guys know where I had gone or what I was doing... It wasn’t as though I had no idea how you felt about--about my mentor. It was perfectly clear you mistrusted him, and I didn’t want to have to confront or address that. I’m sorry, too.”

He feels a weight on his hand, and finds Xephos reaching out to him. “You’ve improved hugely. I hardly want to give that bleating bastard any credit; I truly believe this has been all your doing.”

“Oh, if only,” Will says with a small smile. “No, I really did need his help, Uncle Xephos. You’re a strong sorcerer, but you didn’t have any idea what to do with a mage when I showed up here. I needed that guidance. Now that I know the sort of discipline my powers require, I don’t need that sort of mollycoddling.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Xephos breathes out. After a moment, he sips his wine again and pats Will’s hand. “But, in all seriousness, Will. Do pop ‘round more often.” A thought seems to strike Xephos, hard enough for him to cough around a gulp of wine and slam the glass down. "Though not with him, Will. Dear _Gods_ , not with him."

Will laughs, huge and loud and unashamed in the house that was his home. "I know Uncle Xephos, I know! I’m not _that_ foolish!" Around his mirth, Will thinks of every time he’s ever mentioned the brownstone while in the greenhouse, the way his fae mentor had curled around the air that shaped the words like a covetous dragon, the way the atmosphere of the shop had changed to darken with desire. To ever invite the fae lord into the brownstone would mean the ruin of the hearth, the home, and the family which had kept Will safe in all his time in the city. He would never allow that to happen, not for all the neglect Xephos could ever act upon him. “He’s never going to enter this house. Not by my doing. I promise.”

Xephos smiles, laughs a little with him. “Are you absolutely sure? You two aren’t a package deal now, are you? I'm not going to walk upstairs to find a particularly bothersome goatfae in my kitchen, am I?"

"Uncle Xephos, you seem to keep forgetting that for years this was my home too. I want to protect this hearth just as much as you do.” Will fiddles some more with his wine glass, then has a thought. “And don't let him hear you call him that. He will lose his mind, and then he will stop at nothing to get in here." 

His smile morphs into a grin, pleased and wily. “All the more reason to use it liberally within the confines of this home.” He sips the last of his wine and raises an eyebrow at Will. "But truly, giving you an invitation won't extend to him, will it?" 

"We're not so close as to be synonymous, Uncle. I’m his apprentice, not his spy." 

"Could have fooled me." 

"Which is why I stayed away." The honesty isn’t something he means to offer, but it tumbles from his lips anyway. He glares at the wine glass, as though it’s at fault for forcing the alcohol which has loosened his lips upon him.

Xephos quiets. “Really?”

Will sighs, spinning the base of the glass once, then pushing it away. “I... yes. There was a while there where I--For a time, coming home felt dangerous.” He takes a deep breath, running his hand over the ring of his neck, the skin oddly warmer than the rest of him. “If I had come back any earlier than this, I...”

The hand is back on top of his own, and Xephos gives him a smile which feels like everything he’s missed about living in the attic.

“Don’t worry,” he says, as reassuringly as he can manage. “We’re... Not equals, but we are on equal footing now. When I was younger, he was definitely--It wasn’t fair. He’s fae, of course it wasn’t. But I think... The disparity isn’t quite as stark anymore. I can handle myself with him, now.”

“Are you sure? Will, sweetheart, I don’t want you to continue with this just because you think he’s the only one that can mentor you! I know some lovely people, some very strong magical folk, who could--”

Will sandwiches Xephos’ hand between his own. “But none of them are as strong as you, right?” he says, not unkindly, and Xephos’ face falls. “You used to say that all the time; how everyone you worked with was incompetent at best. And you could hardly understand what was happening to me. What I have is unlike what you built in yourself, what you infused in Lalna, and what Uncle Dew barely understands about himself. I’m as close to fae as mortals get, and that makes me both dangerous and perpetually _in_ danger.” 

His uncle sighs, and adds his other hand to complete the weird circle of contact comfort they have going on between them. “I know, my boy. I just wish I was strong enough to be what he is for you. As a mentor and protector, I mean.”

“I know. But you’re already that for Lalna and Uncle Dew. I couldn’t ask you to abandon them for me, not when neither of us was sure you could do it.”

“I know,” Xephos echoes. He pats his top hand, then the one caught between both of Will’s. “I _do_ know. I just worry so terribly. About all of my sons.”

Will coughs around the emotion that rises in his throat, and tamps it all down with a firm pat of his own sandwiched hands. “Are you always this ornery with your kids when they move in with fae?”

Xephos scoffs and flings himself back in his chair, throwing his hands out wide after dragging them out of Will’s grasp. “Are you joking? You ought to ask Honey about when I first heard tell of Lalna going off to live with the dryad. I mean, really? A tree spirit? Does the boy not have any idea what fae like that _do_ when you take care of their home? Did I not read all of them enough from my encyclopaedias and field notes and research journals for them to know this by rote?” Will laughs, reclining in his chair, and Xephos smirks at him. “I’m bloody serious. I knew that Rythian boy before he got turned by one of the local vampires and I gave him _weeks_ of shit after that, every time I saw him.”

“Well, they all turned out all right, didn’t they?”

“For a given definition of ‘all right’,” Xephos allows, “have you ever spoken to Rythian?”

Will thinks for a moment, then snorts. “Point.”

The silence then is amicable, for the first time since entering the brownstone. “Thank you, William,” Xephos says, eventually.

“For what?” Will asks.

“For coming home. I had missed you so much.”

He looks away, and Will lets him for how he sees his eyes shining in the dim dining room light. “I’ll try not to be away for so long this time.”

Xephos nods. “I’d like it if you could. Though I understand if you can’t.”

They share a look, and a small smile. The walls of the house sag around them with relief, as if the brownstone itself were sighing gratefully. 

“Who’s up for some strawberry rhubarb pie, in there?” Honeydew asks from the kitchen. 

When Will leaves, pulling on his shoes and his coat, slinging his bag over his shoulder, Honeydew hugs him, Lalna pats him on the back and makes him promise to meet him and his brothers for coffee or drinks sometime, and Xephos grabs his face, kisses his forehead, the apples of his cheeks, and draws his thumbs across the smattering of freckles across the bridge of Will’s nose. The door is open but the spring chill of night doesn’t seem to penetrate the threshold. “Take care, will you?”

“Of course,” says Will, and he only hopes he’s being honest.


End file.
